From 1960 to 1962, Doucet was a high school teacher in Manitoba. From 1962 to 1965, he was a high school principal in Quebec. In 1965, he was appointed dean of studies at St. Lawrence College, Université Laval. In 1968, he was appointed administrative assistant to the president of St. Francis Xavier University. After a doctoral study leave from 1974 to 1976, he was appointed a director of student services and a professor of organizational behavior & administration theory at St. Francis Xavier University. From 1979 to 1982, he was a director of development. Doucet enlisted Mulroney to spearhead a fundraising drive for the school; Mulroney's leadership helped bring in $11 million, $4 million over the original goal.
Business career
In 1982, he was appointed CEO of East Coast Energy Limited. This company, which aimed to develop offshore oil and gas resources in Atlantic Canada, was highly speculative, and wound up being significantly undercapitalized. Offshore petroleum development is much more expensive than land-based petroleum development, with exploration, well-drilling, and extraction costs being in the hundreds of millions of dollars, restricting entry to the major industry players. East Coast Energy, a new company with little specialized expertise, foundered in 1983, and most of its investors, including Walter Wolf, Brian Mulroney, and others, lost everything, as no petroleum was ever produced by the company.
Political career
Doucet became a backroom Tory in his university years. He assisted Mulroney with his 1983 local campaign in the Central Nova riding. In 1983, he was appointed chief of staff to Brian Mulroney after he became Leader of the Opposition. Doucet played a significant role in the 1984 national election campaign. After Mulroney was elected prime minister, Doucet was his senior adviser from 1984 to 1987. From 1987 to 1989, he was an organizer for the economic summit in the Department of External Affairs.
Lobbyist
In 1988, he founded his own lobbying firm Fred Doucet Consulting International in association with his brother Gerald Doucet. In 1990, he was appointed CEO of Government Business Consulting Group Inc., which he founded with Jean-Jacques Blais, John Manion, Lincoln Alexander, and Judd Buchanan. German-Canadian lobbyist and dealmaker Karlheinz Schreiber filed an affidavit in Ontario Superior Court in early November 2007, which claimed that Fred Doucet had requested cash transfers on behalf of Mulroney for the Airbus affair deal. Doucet denied this. A public inquiry was called by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Schreiber appeared before the House of Commons of Canada's Ethics Committee, under its study of the Mulroney Airbus Settlement, where he repeated the statement. Both Mulroney and Doucet are on the list of witnesses which the Ethics Committee intends to call in the future. Doucet had also testified in the libel suit brought by Mulroney against the Government of Canada, over allegations that Mulroney had received cash from Schreiber; Mulroney claimed to have done no business with Schreiber after he stepped down as prime minister. Mulroney won a $2.1 million judgement and an apology in 1997. It was later revealed that Mulroney had in fact accepted $300,000 in three cash installments from Schreiber, facts which were not disclosed at the trial. Schreiber stated that Fred Doucet had set up the three meetings where Schreiber paid Mulroney in 1993 and 1994, and was present at the final meeting where cash changed hands.
